Sebastián Espinel Ríos

Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) of Bioproduction

School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering

University College Dublin

I am an Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) of Bioproduction at UCD's School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering (SCBE). I am also involved in Rinn Pharma & Biopharma, Ireland's national centre for Research & Innovation in Making Medicines, and serve as Head of Engagement at SCBE.

I hold a PhD in Engineering, awarded summa cum laude, from the International Max Planck Research School at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems and Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany). I also hold an MSc in Biotechnology, with a specialization in Process Technology, from Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands), and a BSc in Biotechnology Engineering from the Autonomous University of Yucatán (Mexico). My postdoctoral research experience includes positions at Princeton University's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (USA) and CSIRO, Australia's national science agency.

PhD students

Yufan Liu

Research project: robust and transferable reinforcement learning for bioprocess control under partial observability and uncertainty.

Yufan Liu is from China and previously completed a Master’s degree in Data and Computational Science at University College Dublin. Before starting the PhD, she worked as a Cloud Support Engineer at Amazon Web Services, focusing on data analytics and machine learning systems. She has experience working across multiple countries and industries, and is interested in applying reinforcement learning to complex real-world problems. In her spare time, she enjoys travelling, hiking, and exploring different cultures around the world.

Ning Song

Research project: AI-enabled, physics-informed digital twin frameworks for downstream processing in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Ning Song holds an MSc in Industrial Biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Her previous research combined experimental bioprocess development with machine learning and mechanistic modeling, including Bayesian optimization, kinetic modeling, and ODE-based process simulation across upstream and downstream bioprocessing. Her PhD research focuses on developing AI-enabled, physics-informed digital twin methodologies to better capture and predict the dynamics of biopharmaceutical processes, particularly in downstream processing.

Master's students

Chris O'Leary

Research project: hybrid modelling strategies for constraint-based dynamic metabolic models with inducible gene expression.

Chris is an ME Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering student at UCD completing his master's research thesis in the group.

External members

Alan Antonio Herrera Pineda

Co-supervised thesis project: development of a multiscale mathematical model for astaxanthin production in Phaffia rhodozyma.

Alan is an MSc student in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Cinvestav Zacatenco, Mexico) in the group of Dr. Luis Bernardo Flores Cotera.

Past members

Keivan Ahmadi (2026)

Co-supervised research project: reinforcement learning for non-invasive brain stimulation.

Keivan is a PhD student at the Control and Cyber-Physical Systems Laboratory (TU Darmstadt, Germany) in the group of Prof. Rolf Findeisen.

Sam Ferrer (2026)

Research project: uncertainty-aware modelling of optogenetic protein production in yeast.

Sam is an undergraduate summer intern majoring in Process Engineering (ENSIACET, France).

Krrish Kumar Verma (2026)

Co-supervised research project: reduced modelling pipelines of optogenetic systems toward hybrid machine-learning/mechanistic approaches.

BTech student in Chemical Engineering (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi) jointly co-supervised by Dr. Emmanouil Alexis from Princeton University (ODBI & CBE, USA).